A Hanoi court on Wednesday handed down jail terms to seven Chinese nationals for running a company that made hundreds of thousands of illegal money transfers worth more than US$36 million between China and Vietnam.

Wang Hui, 28, was sentenced to 15 months for operating the scheme in Vietnam. Six of her accomplices, aged 22-32, got 14 months and 12 days each.

They will be deported after finishing their sentences.

Wang was allegedly hired by a Chinese man called Joe, who remains at large, to head the illegal operation in Vietnam.

She came to Vietnam in February 2014 and hired a Vietnamese woman to set up a trade promotion company to cover the illegal money transfers.

Wang recruited the six Chinese people to help her run the scheme, overseeing a group of 39 Vietnamese employees.

By the time the company was busted in February 2015, it had made hundreds of thousands of transactions involving a total of more than VND800 billion (US$36 million), with a daily average of 600 transactions. The money came into and out of 1,400 bank accounts.

During the trial, the Chinese defendants refused to disclose the purposes and further details of the transactions. They claimed that they only did what Joe told them to.